DATE: Sunday, November 2, 1997              TAG: 9711020302

SECTION: SPORTS                  PAGE: C2   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY BOB ZELLER, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: PHOENIX                           LENGTH:   67 lines

CRAVEN'S IN FIELD; OTHERS UP IN ARMS SOME CRIED POLITICS, OTHERS FAVORITISM, WHEN A PROVISIONAL SPOT WAS CREATED FOR AN INELIGIBLE DRIVER.

NASCAR ignited one of the biggest controversies of the year Saturday at Phoenix International Raceway when it awarded a provisional starting spot to Ricky Craven, who was not eligible to receive one.

The decision came one day after teams were told that Craven could not receive a provisional because he already had used all seven that were available to his team at this point in the year.

A parade of car owners and drivers vented their anger to NASCAR president Bill France and other officials of the sanctioning body Saturday afternoon after the second round of time trials was completed and a 43-car field was set instead of a 42-car field.

The arcane explanation that NASCAR used to justify the decision didn't seem to satisfy anyone.

Mike Helton, NASCAR vice president of competition, said the provisional spot was available for a 43rd starter because there has always been a provisional available in the Dura-Lube 500 for a car from the Winston West series.

Although the Winston West drivers no longer race in the 500, Helton said the provisional starting spot was still there for the taking. So Craven and the No. 25 Budweiser Chevrolet took it.

``If there's a window to use a provisional, we're going to use it,'' Helton said.

And NASCAR spokesman Kevin Triplett confirmed that in order to get Craven into the field, NASCAR had to ignore its rule limiting provisionals.

To many car owners, Richard Petty and Darrell Waltrip among them, NASCAR used a phantom provisional to get a car in the race that didn't deserve to be in the race on the basis of its own system.

``There is a `get out of jail free' card in NASCAR, and Budweiser gets it,'' said car owner Buz McCall, who missed the Texas race because of another arcane NASCAR system: the use of postmarks to decide who gets starting spots in a race where qualifying is rained out.

Added car owner Bill Davis: ``It's no big deal that Ricky Craven is in the race. I'm glad he's in the race. But what happens early next year when 1997 car-owner points are so critical for deciding who gets provisionals?

``I won't have any points from Talladega. We missed that race. But Craven will have points from Phoenix. That's huge.''

Dave Marcis, who has missed 11 races this year, starts today's race from the 38th starting spot. But he was furious Saturday afternoon.

``It's not right,'' Marcis said. ``He don't have a provisional. He does not have a provisional. That's the key word in this whole issue.''

Marcis, unsure that he would make today's race on his time, was prepared to change the number on his car and have a Winston West driver take a lap in it to make sure he got the Winston West provisional. He told NASCAR of his plan.

``I knew automatically that I would be in the race. But they said I couldn't do it. They said it had to be done before 7 o'clock this morning,'' Marcis said.

``We've never sent someone home with a short field (less than 42 cars) because they had used all of their provisionals,'' Helton said.

In fact, said Triplett, NASCAR modified its provisional rules in 1996 to prevent that from happening after Marcis was sent home from a race with a short field because he had run out of provisionals.

But the whole matter just didn't sit right with the folks in the garage because of the other rule - the one that was ignored - that puts a specific limit on provisional starting spots.

As one public relations representative put it: ``There might be an explanation for it, but you don't want a stupid, convoluted system that allows people to think it is rigged.''

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